We show that in many extender models, e.g., the minimal one with infinitely many Woodin cardinals or the minimal with a Woodin cardinal that is a limit of Woodin cardinals, there are no generic embeddings with critical point $\omega _1$ that resemble the stationary tower at the second Woodin cardinal. The meaning of “resemble” is made precise in the paper (see Definition 0.3).

A set of reals is universally Baire if all of its continuous preimages in topological spaces have the Baire property. ${\sf Sealing}$ is a type of generic absoluteness condition introduced by Woodin that asserts in strong terms that the theory of the universally Baire sets cannot be changed by set forcings. The ${\sf Largest\ Suslin\ Axiom}$ ( ${\sf LSA}$ ) is a determinacy axiom isolated by Woodin. It asserts that the largest Suslin cardinal is inaccessible for ordinal definable surjections. Let ${\sf LSA}$ - ${\sf over}$ - ${\sf uB}$ be the statement that in all (set) generic extensions there is a model of $\sf {LSA}$ whose Suslin, co-Suslin sets are the universally Baire sets. We outline the proof that over some mild large cardinal theory, $\sf {Sealing}$ is equiconsistent with $\sf {LSA}$ - $\sf {over}$ - $\sf {uB}$ . In fact, we isolate an exact theory (in the hierarchy of strategy mice) that is equiconsistent with both (see Definition 3.1). As a consequence, we obtain that $\sf {Sealing}$ is weaker than the theory “ $\sf {ZFC}$ + there is a Woodin cardinal which is a limit of Woodin cardinals.” This significantly improves upon the earlier consistency proof of $\sf {Sealing}$ by Woodin. A variation of $\sf {Sealing}$ , called $\sf {Tower \ Sealing}$ , is also shown to be equiconsistent with $\sf {Sealing}$ over the same large cardinal theory. We also outline the proof that if V has a proper class of Woodin cardinals, a strong cardinal, and a generically universally Baire iteration strategy, then $\sf {Sealing}$ holds after collapsing the successor of the least strong cardinal to be countable. This result is complementary to the aforementioned equiconsistency result, where it is shown that $\sf {Sealing}$ holds in a generic extension of a certain minimal universe. This theorem is more general in that no minimal assumption is needed. A corollary of this is that $\sf {LSA}$ - $\sf {over}$ - $\sf {uB}$ is not equivalent to $\sf {Sealing}$ .

Let Msw denote the least iterable inner model with a strong cardinal above a Woodin cardinal. By [11], Msw has a fully iterable core model, ${K^{{M_{{\rm{sw}}}}}}$, and Msw is thus the least iterable extender model which has an iterable core model with a Woodin cardinal. In V, ${K^{{M_{{\rm{sw}}}}}}$ is an iterate of Msw via its iteration strategy Σ.

We here show that Msw has a bedrock which arises from ${K^{{M_{{\rm{sw}}}}}}$ by telling ${K^{{M_{{\rm{sw}}}}}}$ a specific fragment ${\rm{\bar{\Sigma }}}$ of its own iteration strategy, which in turn is a tail of Σ. Hence Msw is a generic extension of $L[{K^{{M_{{\rm{sw}}}}}},{\rm{\bar{\Sigma }}}]$, but the latter model is not a generic extension of any inner model properly contained in it.

These results generalize to models of the form Ms (x) for a cone of reals x, where Ms (x) denotes the least iterable inner model with a strong cardinal containing x. In particular, the least iterable inner model with a strong cardinal above two (or seven, or boundedly many) Woodin cardinals has a 2-small core model K with a Woodin cardinal and its bedrock is again of the form $L[K,{\rm{\bar{\Sigma }}}]$.

We show that the Mouse Set Conjecture for sets of reals is true in the minimal model of ADℝ + “Θ is regular”. As a consequence, we get that below ADℝ + “Θ is regular”, models of AD++¬ADℝ are hybrid mice over ℝ. Such a representation of models of AD+ is important in core model induction applications.

In this paper, we show that the failure of the unique branch hypothesis $\left( \text{UBH} \right)$ for tame trees implies that in some homogenous generic extension of $V$ there is a transitive model $M$ containing Ord $\cup \mathbb{R}$ such that $M\,\vDash \,\text{A}{{\text{D}}^{+}}\,+\,\Theta \,>\,{{\theta }_{0}}$. In particular, this implies the existence (in $V$) of a non-tame mouse. The results of this paper significantly extend J. R. Steel's earlier results for tame trees.

The purpose of this paper is to outline some recent progress in descriptive inner model theory, a branch of set theory which studies descriptive set theoretic and inner model theoretic objects using tools from both areas. There are several interlaced problems that lie on the border of these two areas of set theory, but one that has been rather central for almost two decades is the conjecture known as the Mouse Set Conjecture (MSC). One particular motivation for resolving MSC is that it provides grounds for solving the inner model problem which dates back to 1960s. There have been some new partial results on MSC and the methods used to prove the new instances suggest a general program for solving the full conjecture. It is then our goal to communicate the ideas of this program to the community at large.